Study: SD faces graduation challenge

Researchers say big effort needed to achieve success

Disadvantaged students across the state will have difficulty meeting stiff new graduation requirements unless sweeping interventions are quickly implemented, according to a report released Wednesday that draws on evidence from the San Diego Unified School District.

Several districts — San Diego Unified, Sweetwater, Carlsbad, Los Angeles and San Francisco among them — will require students to pass courses necessary to apply to a California State University or University of California campus in order to graduate high school in the coming years.

The stepped-up graduation rules are designed to prepare more students for college. But many students — especially those who are poor and not fluent in English — are at risk of failing the new standards, according to the study from the Public Policy Institute of California.

The report, “College Readiness as a graduation Requirement,” examines the potential impact of San Diego Unified’s new graduation policy that goes into effect with the class of 2016.

This year’s crop of freshmen must incorporate the 15 classes required for admission to the UC and CSU systems into their four years of high school. The college-prep courses are commonly known as the A-G sequence.

UC and CSU eligibility standards call for a minimum C grade in A-G courses. San Diego Unified, Sweetwater, San Francisco and other districts in the state will accept D grades in those classes — in addition to an overall 2.0 grade-point average — to earn a diploma.

Focusing on San Diego Unified’s class of 2011, the report identifies challenges districts will face as they transition to the new graduation standards. Only 61.1 percent of high school seniors in 2011 would have earned a diploma under the standards that call for a D grade in the college-prep courses. San Diego Unified’s graduation rates would have dropped to 41.8 percent had a C grade been required.

“San Diego has a long way to go, but there is definitely hope here,” said Julian Betts, the study’s lead researcher and a professor at UC San Diego. “The district is phasing this in gradually. We think that this is really feasible for the district to boost A-G completion rates to 80 percent in two or three years.”

San Diego Unified was recently recognized for having the best 2012 graduation rate of 86.9 among California’s large urban districts. Schools have until 2020 to meet the state graduation target of 90 percent.

Betts noted that a significant number of students missed the A-G requirements by only two or three semester courses.

The subjects that most students have trouble with were math, English and foreign languages, the study found. The student populations who had the most trouble with the standards were English learners, Latinos, blacks, boys and those who qualify for subsidized meals based on family income.

Betts recommends that San Diego Unified and other districts pushing new graduation standards implement three specific interventions: Educate parents and students about the policies by middle school, taking special efforts to reach out to those who don’t speak English or have access to computers; identify and help struggling students early; and offer professional development to help prepare teachers for classes that will include a wide variety of achievement levels.

San Diego Unified has already started doing just that, said Sid Salazar, an assistant superintendent overseeing the district’s new graduation criteria.

Earlier this week the San Diego school board voted to expand summer school offerings for high school students who are behind or have failed core classes. Administrators are working to identify struggling middle school students and give them help — during class and after hours — next year. And teachers, especially those who teach math, are getting coached on how to handle the changing dynamics of their classrooms.

“It is going to be challenging, but I think we are on track,” Salazar said.

The district is trying to reverse a trend where too many students were counseled out of A-G courses. Others skipped them altogether because the classes were not required or because they attended schools that simply didn’t offer them.

The A-G graduation criteria had two significant changes to San Diego’s standards: Intermediate algebra as the required third year of math (previously only algebra and geometry were mandated. leaving the third math course to the discretion of students) and calling for two years of the same foreign language.

Intermediate algebra is a course that has historically separated those who go on to a four-year university from those who don’t. That means teachers are used to teaching that class to the most proficient math students.

The Sweetwater Union High School District starting preparing its middle schoolers for its 2016 graduation standards in 2011.

The percent of graduates who met A-G requirements with a “C” grade went from 33 percent in 2011 to 36.6 percent last year. Again, many students missed the standard by one course, said Sweetwater spokesman Manuel Rubio.

“A couple of courses can make a big difference. Our curriculum department pored over transcripts and can tell horror stories about how incredibly close so many students were to making it,” Rubio said. “We are eliminating unnecessary classes and all the ways kids can slip through the cracks. We believe we can do this.”

PPIC researchers said the A-G graduation standards merit more study. San Jose — which adopted an A-G requirement in 2002 — and Oakland each have an explicit opt-out process. Others may do the same since the state education code requires alternate pathways to a high school diploma, Betts said.

However, if the opt-outs become widely used by districts, the very students that the policy was designed to support may have little incentive to take on college-prep courses.

Meanwhile, some students who did not complete A-G coursework managed to get to college, according to some of the most surprising findings in the study.

For example, about 7 percent of San Diego’s 2011 graduates who did not meet the UC and CSU requirement of earning a C in A-G courses attended one of those campuses anyway. About 12 percent of graduates who failed to earn a C grade in A-G classes enrolled in four-year colleges or universities (some of them private or out-of-state public institutions) anyway.